What Would You Have Done?
by Seldavia
Summary: ALBW oneshot. With the all-consuming Void as her constant companion, is there any question that she would have done what she did?


Cursed is the one who is made sleepless by good fortune.

No, it is not the deliverance of Lorule that makes my heart still race, it is the absence of the Doom that hung over our heads for so long. Even now, a year after the sun returned to grace our land once more, a year of watching my subjects rejoice and Ravio's cowardice replaced with childish glee, I still awaken in the middle of the night. Born under the swinging pendulum, I find it difficult to understand that its blade is not still there.

Princess Zelda, the link between our worlds was sundered when you gave us back our entire existence. If only I could ask; was it what you had seen that pushed you to make that wish? Or was it knowing that if it were you, you might have been driven to the same extremes?

Though you might have an inkling, I still maintain that you could not know what it means to be Lorule's sovereign. The Triforce of Wisdom granted me a glance into the history of its world when I claimed it for that small seed of time. Hyrule's whole bloody history, blades made and broken in vain, to claim that golden treasure your family guarded as mine once did, before we betrayed our own state of being. And yet, beneath all the strife, you still had a solid foundation on which to live. The lush emerald grass might go brown, but still there was rich earth and solid stone beneath it.

For us, there was merely the Void, that great hungry maw which would one day consume all. A hole so deep and dark that not even light could escape. To live in Lorule meant to sleep next to a cliffside, one eye constantly on the widening cracks, a constant stream of pebbles and soil down its scarred banks. One day, we knew, the avalanche would throw us all down into that Great Nothing, our existence annihilated for all time.

Can you imagine? We may both mourn lost heroes and forgotten legends, but the Children of the Void know that one day it will be as if they never existed at all. Death is a sad thing, but it is the end of a life; the final page in each person's own legend. The Void would leave behind no trace, nothing and no one to remember that there had ever been such a place as Lorule. The saddest story is the one that has never been written.

And that was merely the reality of the common people of my country. Now imagine being betrothed to it from birth, knowing it to be a barren union from the beginning, like trying to grow flowers in a cave. Imagine being married to a husband that gives no quarter, who listens to no pleas. Who covers you in fresh bruises each day, who leaves your battered body crisscrossed with scars that will never heal. With a husband like that, is there any question that one would attempt to escape from him, at any cost?

It was not an easy decision, though the reason why may be different from what you think. I was raised to see the Void as my shadow, my partner. The sins of my forefathers passed down onto their children, the burden I was born to bear. My fate was fed to me through my mother's breast, it was my daily bread, it was handed to me each morning with my clothing. When Yuga came to me, speaking in whispers of another way, I was at first afraid to listen.

But that changed on the day he followed me on my way to pay tribute to our Triforce's grave, the ritual that was meant to keep me grounded in despair. So can you imagine my surprise upon seeing that golden crack, at first just a hair's breadth, the window to another world that I could not even imagine? Ravio gave me no comfort. He fled from the light, like a spooked cat. But Yuga knew this was an escape from that dark oblivion. He flitted with ease back and forth between the two worlds, feeding me knowledge – albeit knowledge he had filtered for his own purposes.

Another Triforce! At first I could not comprehend that two of something so boundless could exist. And I thought to myself, surely there must be enough power in a thing so great as a Triforce that it could fuel two worlds at once. That was my initial idea; to ask for a piece of what Yuga told me had already been broken. Hyrule's rulers held one piece; the Darkness that weighed against the Light held another. And then a third piece, that did not even seem to be in use most of the time. Might we beg or borrow a piece of Hyrule's divinity?

Of course, I could not traverse the link between worlds. Only Yuga could, and Ravio once his fear of us trumped all the others. Stealing was the only way, he told me. Back then I did not think that anyone, anywhere in Lorule could have any motive outside of keeping the Void at bay. And even then I considered other options. I had no way of moving my people there, else I would have tried that. Though it seems we would have fared no better than Ganon at the hands of the Hyruleans.

Oh yes, I know that story. The Triforce of Wisdom still bore the memories of he who sundered the Golden Power so many ages ago. The monster was once a man, a man with his own people. A man who watched his sisters starve in the desert while the Children of the Youngest Goddess flourished. Your country has seen the union of Desperation and Greed, and the twisted spawn that results. And he merely had the absence of something, instead of nothing. So we, like Ganon, became thieves.

It was one chance, one lucky happenstance that placed Hyrule's Triforce into my hands. Those three triangles stood between me and the Void, a golden shield protecting me from the claws of my betrothed. And then the first betrayal, a glancing blow, Yuga's proclamation that this new world would be his and not mine. A mere usurper; either as the rider or the horse, I still would be able to step back from the chasm. I could have resisted more when he took my power and my spirit to fight Link, but I did not.

It was the second betrayal that brought me to my knees. Ravio the coward, too frightened to fight his own battles, either with swords or with words. He had disappeared when I needed him most, to find someone who could do what he could not. I know my words are too harsh; we cannot act outside our own natures. He was chained by fear, and I by the Void. We both needed someone unfettered to cut our chains for us. And so by Link's blade we were both freed.

We had nothing holding us now, and so we cut your bonds as well, sent you back to your world with your Hero. I had not expected you to return my malice with kindness. Was it naivety? Or was it something else?

Did you understand what we were facing? Could you feel the chill of the Void in your skin for the short time that you were here? Did you have a glimpse of what it meant to be Princess of Lorule? I know there are those who would have walked proudly to their Doom, embraced their betrothed even as he throttled the life from them. I am not one of those people. Even though I feared to step off the path my ancestors paved for me, I knew even as a child that I would one day do so. I would do it again if I had to. Only fools wait to be consumed. So say I, Hilda of Lorule.

Somehow I feel you believe the same, Zelda of Hyrule. What would you have done?


End file.
